I don't like driving. I learned to drive in a small town with one stoplight. The main road hazards where snow and deer. I didn't like driving then. Now, I live in a city with terrible traffic and many more than one stop light. The main road hazards are... everything. I really don't like driving now.

I managed to go over a decade without driving a car. Between public transit, Uber, and a husband who doesn't mind driving, it was pretty easy to avoid having to get behind the wheel myself. 

Then, we had a kid.

I knew, from a safety and life perspective, it would be easier for us if I just started driving again.

I started easy. I drove with my husband in the car only going to and from daycare. Then I did a few solo drives to the grocery store. Then I leveled up to taking our kiddo to and from school. Now, I occasionally do longer solo jaunts to run errands.

On Friday, I drove to CostCo. It's just over 17 miles roundtrip. I literally turn onto the main street outside our building, pick the middle lane, and stay there until I turn into the mall that houses the warehouse. There are no turns. I don't need to change lanes. I drive there outside of rush hour.

I hate it. My FitBit clocks my heart rate like I'm running up stairs. 

But I did it. It's the second time I've done this trip and it was a little easier than the first. With time, I hope I get less anxious about driving. 

Just don't ask me to get on a highway anytime soon.

What scary things do you push through?

Just this cartoon every month.

When I was a kid, summer felt like forever. The days went on and on, and it felt like I had all the time in the world to play and read.  Now, three months go by and it feels like seconds. I was looking at my summer projects list for work and realized that if I got even half of it done, I could consider myself to be highly productive.

Time speeds up as you age. It's a known phenomenon. My sense of time was even more radically altered by becoming a mom. I can actually see time progressing by how tall our toddler gets compared to various objects in our home. (I will be happy when she grows past the "eyes at even level with the corner of the dining room table" stage.)

The pandemic has thrown things even more for a loop. What even is time if every day feels weirdly the same and we can't do big events to break things up?

I know that time is a real thing. But, it feels so much like a construct that I'm beginning to think it's pointless. In some ways, seeing time as something fake is radically freeing. It means we get to live in the moment and just enjoy the present as it happens.

Then again, when my doctor is 25 minutes late for an appointment, you better believe I complain about time. 

How has your view of time changed?

I am full of rage and frustration. My jaw hurts from how hard I've been clenching my teeth this week. I told my husband that I couldn't even vent to him because it's not like it matters. Nothing matters because nothing is going to happen.

Nothing.

Anne Helen Peterson eloquently explains why this feels so bad. It's designed to. We no longer live in a true representative democracy.

Nothing is going to change.

That is why the hurt goes so deep.

I've never been one to specialize. I find that I am far too interested in far too many things for that.

I started working on the strategic planning for a revamp of my website and found that I could, at best, manage to clump my professional work into three major chunks: outreach and marketing, leadership and management, and information literacy and instruction. Within those categories are a ton of subtopics like customer service, productivity, and photography. 

I don't know how to specialize my work... and I don't want to.

I find that all the aspects of what I do roll into one another. Knowing how to provide effective customer service increases my leadership skills which, in turn, leads me to be more productive, which allows me to focus on creating new things for our social media, which allows me to share what I've learned with others, which helps me improve my teaching skills, and on and on and on.

I see my work as one big mush of things and I love it all. I would be loathe to give any of it up.

It's the same with my personal interests. I jump from reading about calligraphy, to life management, to cooking, to parenting, to history, to minimalism. My reading list abounds what random titles that caught my eye in the moment.

I thrive on having a variety of interesting things to learn. It's one reason I write this. I can flit from one idea to another, never being bored of learning new things.

Are you a generalist or a specialist?

I have mixed feelings about the subscription business model that everything seems to be moving to these days. On the one hand, I like being able to actively choose the individual content I pay for. On the other hand, it gets expensive quickly.

For example, I pretty much replaced all my print magazine subscriptions with Substacks.  I love being able to pay authors directly but this is getting so pricey that I've decided to limit myself to just 5 subscriptions at a time. I want full access to many more, but I can't justify the cost.

That makes me think that I would happily pay $200 a year directly to Substack itself to avoid all the paywalls on their website...

But then - oh, look - we've reinvented cable.

This is my problem. Bundling generally keeps prices down but it dilutes the payments to the original creators. Direct payments are more rewarding to the creators BUT they get too expensive to allow me to support everyone I want to support.

So, in the end, what really is better for everyone? The individual subscription model or the bundle model?

What's your opinion on subscriptions and paywalls?

This week, I presented at a conference. I also presented at a conference last month. Next month, I present twice at the same conference. In the fall, I'm giving a webinar for a national library organization. I've got half a dozen more proposals out for consideration and I legitimately think most of them will be approved.

Every time one of my proposals is accepted, I am surprised. There's a heavy dose of imposter syndrome going on because who am I to be chosen to talk about these things? Who am I to say that I can teach these things? Who am I compared to the others in attendance? I have a hard time seeing myself as more knowledgeable, skilled, or talented. In fact, I know I am woefully average.

And - yet - my proposals are still selected.

I think my shock comes partly from societal norms that tell women that they're not good enough. I think many (myself included) have a fear of rejection. If your proposal is not accepted, it must mean you are not as good as you think. I also think it comes from the lack of transparency when it comes to demonstrating expertise. At least in librarianship, there's no one teaching you "this is how you present at conferences." You don't learn a process. It's a leap of faith to jump into it.

I took that leap of faith because, one year, I just decided to say "Screw it! Let's try." It was one of the best decisions I ever made. 

What are you going to leap of faith into?

I'm not sure if this is true of all Type-A personalities or just my Type-A personality, but I have to plan my free time.

Case in point... Saturday was the start of my 24-hours off from parenting. My husband and I agreed that we would each get two this year and I decided to schedule my first one for this weekend. I packed up a suitcase full of snacks, spa supplies, and my laptop and rolled it down the street to a hotel near our home. For 24-hours it's just me, a rewatch of Bridgerton season 2, a long hot bath, and random scrolling of the internet. 

But, I can't just enjoy this indulgence as it happens, I have to plan for it. For my one night away, I made a packing list, schedule, menu, and a spread in my bullet journal. Sure, some of the timing in the schedule is vague and I only listed some activities I'd like to do, but I still planned my entire night off down to which face masks I wanted to use.

I simply can't not plan. (You hear that? It's all my friends and family snickering in recognition.) I find that I enjoy my time more if I have a roadmap for where I'm going. My brain gets itchy if there's not a list or a schedule. I need to be able to cross things off, even on my "unproductive" days. 

Do you plan your free time?

I had a not so great week.

After three intense weeks of work and personal stuff, I was looking forward to this week being a bit lighter. While the workload itself was generally manageable, things bubbled up that drained my emotional batteries.

I'm an academic librarian. Generally, our students are fantastic and I love nothing more than working directly with them. Sometimes, however, things go awry. This week, a student I assist all the time asked for help but then rejected every attempt on my end to provide that help. The rejection was loud and confrontational. It was so bad, I had to write up an incident report. The next day, another student called my direct line and opened the call with "You people are incompetent." Never a great start. 

At home, our kiddo is about to go through a growth spurt which means she's being assertively independent, cranky, and does not listen. This amounts to a lot of screams, whining, and thrashing. It's frustrating and tiring.

On top of all of this, it was gray and rainy almost every day. The weather seemed to reflect my overall mood instead of helping me out of my funk. Thanks, Mother Nature.

If I were to add things up, all of this amounted to about 6 hours of my life. But those 6 hours ruined everything else. The emotional baggage carried over impacting my mood, ability to engage, and my sleep quality. Instead of trying to climb out of it, I just let myself disengage and wallow in the grumps. 

Then, as the sun finally came out on Friday, I let myself take a deep inhale and start over. 

How was your week?

I am not a handy person. I can wield a paintbrush, hang things on walls, and build furniture; anything beyond that is generally out of my skill set.

When it comes to electrical and plumbing, count me out. I don't want to be anywhere near this kind of work. In fact, my presence is far more a hindrance than a help.

I tried to help my husband install a new light fixture in our bathroom about a month ago. I had a panic attack five minutes in to the process. My father in-law was here last weekend which meant he and my husband could install the water line to our new fridge while I was blissfully unaware at work.

When it comes to advanced DIY work and home maintenance, I would rather pay an expert. More honestly, I leave everything in that arena to my husband's judgement. 

I am well aware that this is a part of "adulting" in which I am weaker. I know that I could take classes, read, and watch videos to get better... but I don't want to. Instead, I happily slot myself into the support role. Does the floor under the dishwasher need to be cleaned before the new one arrives? Done. Help moving heavy items, supplies, or handing up tools to a person on a ladder? Sure. Need a smaller hand to reach something in a tight space? That I can do. Getting things running and organized after they are installed? Count me in.

I am comfortable with my choices because I know that we can't be good at everything. Instead of beating myself up, I happily take a backseat. I can still make contributions without turning into a bundle of stress, frustration, and tears.

What do you know you're not good at?